Jamie Oliver is helping Financial Times publisher Pearson to serve up record profits following the success of the celebrity chef's Jamie's 30-Minute Meals – the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time.

Oliver's book has sold 1.2m copies since its launch last September, driving sales at Pearson's offshoot Penguin, whose performance has also been lifted by the success of The Fry Chronicles, written by television presenter Stephen Fry.

Penguin remains a top performer for the group, with Oliver's bestseller and a range of ebook titles contributing to a strong Christmas season. Pearson's ebook sales were up 300% in the nine months to last October, against the same period in 2009. The company saw its share price advance by 4.5% to £10.52 after it issued a bullish trading update that flagged "strong trading momentum" in educational publishing, where it generates 60% of revenue. Pearson gained market share in school publishing, testing and higher education, despite tough trading conditions in the US.

The Financial Times boosted the number of digital subscribers to its internet offering by more than 70% over the last year to 206,892. Analysts said a large part of the increase was down to an increase in corporate customers; an FT spokesman said corporate subscribers today number over 1,000 for the first time.

According to Pearson, the FT has a combined print and online average daily readership of 1.9 million people worldwide and the newspaper has a daily circulation of 390,121, as reported in today'sABC figures for December 2010. The FT group is expected to record substantial profits growth, and advertising has continued to improve, said the company. Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive, said: "For the third successive year, our growth is vigorous even though market conditions have been anaemic. We are on the right road and set out on 2011 with confidence that we will have another good year."

Pearson said developing markets, digital learning, assessment and English language teaching were all strong. It added: "We are successfully integrating recent bolt-on acquisitions in China, Brazil, South Africa and Nigeria."

Lorna Tilbian, at Numis Securities, said Pearson "is trading robustly and we have upgraded our profit forecast for 2010 from £830m to £855m". Brokers say Pearson is on target to record its best ever financial performance; the company has upgraded its earnings outlook three times in less than six months. It publishes its full-year figures (2010) at the end of February.

Scardino added: "We will report healthy sales growth and further margin improvement, fuelled by our consistent investment in the global learning industry, in digital services and in developing economies."

Pearson says it expects to post full-year operating profit of about £850m for 2010. That is about 20% higher than the £710m it recorded in the previous year. This week, Pearson disclosed it had taken a $127m (£79m) controlling stake in education firm TutorVista, which will increase its presence in India.